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Old 02/02/07, 11:13 AM   #31
Fellwraith
It'll take a lot more than rage and muscle...
 
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Mulack
Orc Warrior
 
No WoW Account
Originally Posted by Liar
I am still pondering what gear to pick. After all, it comes down to "Highest average effective life" (shown by Tankpoints, 1% Dodge is one 1% more mitigation on average) or "Highest guaranteed effective life" (downrank Avoidance here for guaranteed mitigation such as AC and Sta). I think I'll go for the latter because I just have no intention to play Dodge roulette with my raid and because mitigation from AC and HP is always there. If that doesn't work out, I can still change but that is what I intend to do for now anyway.
HP is also nice for soaking magic damage which looks like a bit of a weakness for druid tanks.

Dodge is active mitigation. If you are stunned or incapacitated, it's useless. There's a fair amount of stuns so far from what I've seen in TBC instances. Also, I think dodge requires you be facing your opponent. I know that's the case in PVP, not sure about PVE (want to kill a rogue with evasion up? Stun him or get behind him). I don't know for sure since I'm usually also trying to block and parry, which I know for a fact require you face the right way. That's a problem if you get feared or attacked from behind.

The other thing to consider is what dodge does to overall incoming crit/crush damage. I don't think we ever conclusively determined what the "order" of the combat table was, but if dodge doesn't do anything to reduce the incidence of a crit/crush, then it isn't as valuable as pure AC mitigation is. AC will apply to all of those hits whereas dodge will only apply to "hits". I know when I first started raiding, if I didn't push dodge/parry/miss over 100% with evasion, when I did get hit, it was a guaranteed crit/crush. It made for a very spikey damage curve. I'd get hit 15% of the time, and every single one was for 150-200% damage.

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Old 02/02/07, 12:53 PM   #32
Emmerald
Glass Joe
 
Murloc Druid
 
Draenor (EU)
Originally Posted by Fellwraith
Dodge is active mitigation. If you are stunned or incapacitated, it's useless. There's a fair amount of stuns so far from what I've seen in TBC instances. Also, I think dodge requires you be facing your opponent. I know that's the case in PVP, not sure about PVE (want to kill a rogue with evasion up? Stun him or get behind him). I don't know for sure since I'm usually also trying to block and parry, which I know for a fact require you face the right way. That's a problem if you get feared or attacked from behind.
I was under the impression, that Dodge works also from behind. Your trick against the Rogues works probably because you stunned him...

The other thing to consider is what dodge does to overall incoming crit/crush damage. I don't think we ever conclusively determined what the "order" of the combat table was, but if dodge doesn't do anything to reduce the incidence of a crit/crush, then it isn't as valuable as pure AC mitigation is. AC will apply to all of those hits whereas dodge will only apply to "hits". I know when I first started raiding, if I didn't push dodge/parry/miss over 100% with evasion, when I did get hit, it was a guaranteed crit/crush. It made for a very spikey damage curve. I'd get hit 15% of the time, and every single one was for 150-200% damage.
I think I've read it that avoidance trumps crushing blows, like you pretty much stated from your own experience. Which would make the Dodge trinket a very valuable addition since it would indeed reduce the chance of crushing blow, given high enough avoidance to start with.

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Old 02/02/07, 12:55 PM   #33
Emmerald
Glass Joe
 
Murloc Druid
 
Draenor (EU)
Originally Posted by Fellwraith
Dodge is active mitigation. If you are stunned or incapacitated, it's useless. There's a fair amount of stuns so far from what I've seen in TBC instances. Also, I think dodge requires you be facing your opponent. I know that's the case in PVP, not sure about PVE (want to kill a rogue with evasion up? Stun him or get behind him). I don't know for sure since I'm usually also trying to block and parry, which I know for a fact require you face the right way. That's a problem if you get feared or attacked from behind.
I was under the impression, that Dodge works also from behind. Your trick against the Rogues works probably because you stunned him...

The other thing to consider is what dodge does to overall incoming crit/crush damage. I don't think we ever conclusively determined what the "order" of the combat table was, but if dodge doesn't do anything to reduce the incidence of a crit/crush, then it isn't as valuable as pure AC mitigation is. AC will apply to all of those hits whereas dodge will only apply to "hits". I know when I first started raiding, if I didn't push dodge/parry/miss over 100% with evasion, when I did get hit, it was a guaranteed crit/crush. It made for a very spikey damage curve. I'd get hit 15% of the time, and every single one was for 150-200% damage.
I think I've read it that avoidance trumps crushing blows, like you pretty much stated from your own experience. Which would make the Dodge trinket a very valuable addition since it would indeed reduce the chance of crushing blow, given high enough avoidance to start with.

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Old 02/02/07, 2:44 PM   #34
TheOnly
Don Flamenco
 
Gnome Warlock
 
Dragonblight
dodge not working from behind with evasion is/was a bug. dodge works from behind, parry/block does not. "miss" also works from behind.

If incapacitated and unable to dodge, parry, or block, high AC trumps every trick in a warrior's bag. Both will be hit and crushed, one will take 12% less damage on those hits.

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Old 02/02/07, 4:09 PM   #35
Fellwraith
It'll take a lot more than rage and muscle...
 
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Mulack
Orc Warrior
 
No WoW Account
Originally Posted by TheOnly
dodge not working from behind with evasion is/was a bug. dodge works from behind, parry/block does not. "miss" also works from behind.

If incapacitated and unable to dodge, parry, or block, high AC trumps every trick in a warrior's bag. Both will be hit and crushed, one will take 12% less damage on those hits.
I wasn't making a point about warrior vs druids, I was just saying AC is the bees knees for mitigation. Don't get fooled into thinking 1% avoidance = 1% AC mitigation. The mechanics generally favor AC.

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Old 02/02/07, 4:19 PM   #36
Lokoki
Von Kaiser
 
Tauren Druid
 
Windrunner
I can hit over 27k armor with 21% dodge (close to 30% while raid buffed), right now. I'm going to drop some armor in favor of agility (and defense where agility isn't available). At 27k, inspriration procs seem almost wasted. I think I'm going to try to hover around 25-26k armor and up my dodge as high as possible. I can reach 16k with raid buffs, right now. That seems like enough, for the time being (progressing in Karazhan). These numbers are without a paladin in the raid. Our highest level paladin is 65.

It seems to me that as long as you have enough armor and health to survive a few hits, you should bump dodge as high as you possibly can.

http://ctprofiles.net/2427034

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Old 02/02/07, 5:37 PM   #37
TheOnly
Don Flamenco
 
Gnome Warlock
 
Dragonblight
Originally Posted by Fellwraith
I wasn't making a point about warrior vs druids, I was just saying AC is the bees knees for mitigation. Don't get fooled into thinking 1% avoidance = 1% AC mitigation. The mechanics generally favor AC.
Sorry if I interpreted it that way. I just spent a long time on vent listening to some warriors talk about loot and they were far, far to focused on +defense and stamina and not mentioning agility and AC enough. AC is huge and people often don't realize it because they don't realize that going from 55% to 56% in the character sheet isn't 1% less damage, its 2.2% less. Druids are more attuned to this concept and often overlook dodge%.

In an environment where you expect a constant stream of healing, AC becomes even more important -- for all tanks.

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Old 02/02/07, 5:42 PM   #38
Melthar
Piston Honda
 
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Night Elf Druid
 
Frostmourne
From my experiences so far, reaching crit immunity has been well worth it. At the moment I'm sitting on about 15k HP (fort, motw, no kings, no blood pact), 24k AC, 29% dodge and crit immunity. With threat having been touch and go in 5 mans recently, I was rather nervous about switching in 2 pieces of heavy clefthoof for Kara last night with their lack of offensive stats. However threat was fine and there was no problems in this area.

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Old 02/02/07, 6:08 PM   #39
Tehehe
Von Kaiser
 
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Gnome Warlock
 
Black Dragonflight
Firstly, thanks a lot for all the data. This is an amazing collection of very useful info!

I haven't seen much discussion about the weapon slot though. I'm having a hard time deciding between something with +armor (say [Braxxis' Staff of Slumber]] or eventually [Earthwarden]]) vs something with AP for threat, a bunch of Stamina and maybe some agi for dodge (say [Staff of Beasts]).

I've discussed this a couple times with a few tanks (Bears and Warriors alike) and the argumen goes both ways. Some argue that the extra mitigation from the armor will allow you to take far less total damage, straining the healers less and allowing their mana to last longer and therefore keep you alive longer. Others (me included) tend to say that your chances of dying from spike damage is much higher than dying from healers running out of mana, so the extra stamina is more beneficial.

I know stamian vs. armor has been talked a lot before, but with the case of the weapon slot it seems to be very specific values (~500 armor vs 50 stamina). Hopefully this isn't too repetitive of a discussion.

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Old 02/02/07, 6:24 PM   #40
Lokoki
Von Kaiser
 
Tauren Druid
 
Windrunner
700+ health is not going to make or break you (not when you have over 15,000 health, total), but 3000+ armor just might. If you're tanking a boss with primarily physical damage, you have to go with the armor. If the boss isn't, then I could see an argument for the 500 health.

http://ctprofiles.net/2427034

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Old 02/02/07, 7:18 PM   #41
Tyvi
Never, Mags. Never!
 
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Human Death Knight
 
Turalyon (EU)
Originally Posted by Tehehe
I've discussed this a couple times with a few tanks (Bears and Warriors alike) and the argumen goes both ways. Some argue that the extra mitigation from the armor will allow you to take far less total damage, straining the healers less and allowing their mana to last longer and therefore keep you alive longer. Others (me included) tend to say that your chances of dying from spike damage is much higher than dying from healers running out of mana, so the extra stamina is more beneficial.
I agree with the sentiment of "your chances of dying from spike damage is much higher than dying from healers running out of mana" but your conclusion is wrong. If you argue like that, you do not compare AC against Stamina - because they effectively are one thing due to synergy. The more HP you have, the more your AC counts. And the more AC you have, the more your HP is worth. Usually when people argue about dying to spikes vs dying from healers going OOM they compare an AC/Sta heavy set vs an Avoidance set. Yes, the more Avoidance you have, the more worth your HP and to a slightly lesser extent AC (the more Avoidance you have, the less AC is worth since you get less often which means you get to use your AC less often), however compared to AC/Sta your Avoidance is not something to rely on. Like it was said before, if you get stunned your avoidance is set to 0% (except misses against you) and if you are unlucky it doesn't do shit. Avoidance is just something you can stack up on after getting your minimum set of HP and Armor for a specific boss to easen up the load of damage taken but usually the healers will precast the heals anyway so the benefit is less than you think.

Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if raids would prefer a tank with 0 avoidance and the ability to live through spikes over a tank with 80% avoidance and the chance to die to spikes at 1-2%. I have seen a tank drop dead in 3 seconds on bosses because of, how to say it, unlucky strings of special moves on him although he did take less overall damage than a comparable Bear that stacked AC/Sta. To be fair, said tank would have died due to lack of heals some times as well but he got lucky and avoided some attacks until heals resumed landing on him - but playing Dodge Roulette is not something I'd want.

Make of it what you will.

EDIT: Me sxx0r of spellzing


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Old 02/05/07, 8:45 AM   #42
Jayde
Great Tiger
 
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Night Elf Warrior
 
Silvermoon (EU)
Originally Posted by Fellwraith
Originally Posted by Liar
I am still pondering what gear to pick. After all, it comes down to "Highest average effective life" (shown by Tankpoints, 1% Dodge is one 1% more mitigation on average) or "Highest guaranteed effective life" (downrank Avoidance here for guaranteed mitigation such as AC and Sta). I think I'll go for the latter because I just have no intention to play Dodge roulette with my raid and because mitigation from AC and HP is always there. If that doesn't work out, I can still change but that is what I intend to do for now anyway.
HP is also nice for soaking magic damage which looks like a bit of a weakness for druid tanks.
I'm not really sure I would say it's a "weakness" for a Druid tank, as much as it's a bit different. Predatory Instincts (15% chance to avoid AoE attacks) is an obscenely powerful talent for tanking most bosses and situations from what our Druid tanks are reporting. As I'm not a Druid tank (Warrior) I'm not sure what it all applies to, but they are saying it seems to apply to any AoE effect, including cleaves and spells. Provided that is correct, Bears get a huge boon towards basically having another 15% avoidance on Cleave, Shadowflame-esque abilities, and pulsing AE+RoF type attacks.

Originally Posted by Emmerald
The other thing to consider is what dodge does to overall incoming crit/crush damage. I don't think we ever conclusively determined what the "order" of the combat table was, but if dodge doesn't do anything to reduce the incidence of a crit/crush, then it isn't as valuable as pure AC mitigation is. AC will apply to all of those hits whereas dodge will only apply to "hits". I know when I first started raiding, if I didn't push dodge/parry/miss over 100% with evasion, when I did get hit, it was a guaranteed crit/crush. It made for a very spikey damage curve. I'd get hit 15% of the time, and every single one was for 150-200% damage.
I think I've read it that avoidance trumps crushing blows, like you pretty much stated from your own experience. Which would make the Dodge trinket a very valuable addition since it would indeed reduce the chance of crushing blow, given high enough avoidance to start with.
Avoidance does not trump crushing blows per se...this is a common misconception. Most people think that Block% is good on a Warrior simply because it "cancels crits and crushing blows", when that is simply not the case at all. Crushing is its own slot in the combat table, meaning the combat table from bottom to top looks something like this:

Miss/Parry/Dodge/Block/Crit/Crush/Hit

As it is a table, things on the bottom push things on the top off... however you would need tons and tons of avoidance to ever push crits/crushing blows off the table. Even presuming you are uncrittable, you still have a 15% chance to be crushed at all times, unless you push crushing blows off the table. This would require 85% total avoidance, though, which is usually impossible to get. (Note: As the original quoter said, that may not be the "exact" order of the combat table, but evidence seems to point to it being at least similar to that.)

(This is, incidentally, why people get the wrong impression that block itself is what is good for Warriors...when, in reality, it is simply the fact that the Shield Block skill adds so much to the combat table that crushes get pushed off. It is the Shield Block skill, not blocking itself that prevents crushes.)

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Old 02/05/07, 8:57 AM   #43
Tyvi
Never, Mags. Never!
 
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Human Death Knight
 
Turalyon (EU)
Originally Posted by Jayde
Originally Posted by Fellwraith
Originally Posted by Liar
I am still pondering what gear to pick. After all, it comes down to "Highest average effective life" (shown by Tankpoints, 1% Dodge is one 1% more mitigation on average) or "Highest guaranteed effective life" (downrank Avoidance here for guaranteed mitigation such as AC and Sta). I think I'll go for the latter because I just have no intention to play Dodge roulette with my raid and because mitigation from AC and HP is always there. If that doesn't work out, I can still change but that is what I intend to do for now anyway.
HP is also nice for soaking magic damage which looks like a bit of a weakness for druid tanks.
I'm not really sure I would say it's a "weakness" for a Druid tank, as much as it's a bit different. Predatory Instincts (15% chance to avoid AoE attacks) is an obscenely powerful talent for tanking most bosses and situations from what our Druid tanks are reporting. As I'm not a Druid tank (Warrior) I'm not sure what it all applies to, but they are saying it seems to apply to any AoE effect, including cleaves and spells. Provided that is correct, Bears get a huge boon towards basically having another 15% avoidance on Cleave, Shadowflame-esque abilities, and pulsing AE+RoF type attacks.
PI is a great talent, no doubt, and it's definitely a must have for serious Bear tanks (same goes for Primal Tenacity with the same reasoning). But it is in no way comparable to (Improved) Defensive Stance. It's the same argument about AC/Sta vs Avoidance once again; one guarantees mitigation while the other can potentially negate 100% to 0% of damage taken. While it's true that on average both imp. D stance and PI mitigate roughly the same amount of damage on AoE based magical damage fights a Druid just can't gear around having PI while a Warrior can gear around having D stance. If you know how much magical burst a boss can throw your way you can substract 16% of it and have your minimum HP right there. Fill up the rest with resist gear and you are golden.
A Druid can't just substract 15% and get this required HP like that, he has to go with the worst case of PI never proccing just like the Warrior goes with the worst case of "only" having Imp. D stance.


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Old 02/05/07, 10:03 AM   #44
Zyla
Ravaging the Art World.
 
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Troll Druid
 
Mal'Ganis
I keep reading about bear tanks talking about their 30-40% dodge, and I'm just not seeing it in the optimal gear. Can someone shed some light on the subject? Fully potted out with BoK, I float around 25%. What am I missing?

Originally Posted by Apate View Post
Zyla, International Man of a Certain Standard.
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That's right, I met my future wife through Zyla. :shudder:

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Old 02/05/07, 10:31 AM   #45
Lord BEEF
Soda Popinski
 
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Tauren Druid
 
Mal'Ganis
Grace of air totem probably. After the improved talent, blessing of kings, and survival of the fittest it gives ~100 agility, which is 6.8% dodge. A major agility potion is another 2.7 dodge if you didn't factor that in already

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